June 21, 2011

Rick Perry Lies

According to satirist Andy Borowitz, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign slogan is “What Harm Could a Governor of Texas Do?” “I promised the people of Texas I would destroy the state by 2012, and now it looks like we’re on track to do that,” Borowitz claims that Perry said. He supposedly added that he hoped to bring down the cost of the federal government the same way he reined in costs inTexas, “by making the state no longer habitable for human life as we know it.” His plan to eliminate the states one by one is picking up steam, with support from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Florida Governor Rick Scott. As President, Perry promised (according to Borowitz), he would push a three-part agenda: “Eliminate education, eliminate healthcare, and pray for Rapture.” His one regret about his tenure as governor was that Texas never seceded from the United States, but he added, “As President, I promise that the United States will secede from Planet Earth.” Borowitz is closer to the truth than most people can imagine.

I’m nominating Rick Perry, potential presidential candidate, as Liar of the Week. Or maybe Month. His proud claim that Texas has balanced its budget fails the smell test. The state actually has a $27 billion shortfall requiring massive cuts that adversely impact children, education, the elderly, and people in poverty. If the shortfall disappeared, it’s because Perry took all the money away from people who desperately needed it. He is still lying, however, when he tells everyone that the state would not take any stimulus money from the government in 2009 and then quietly took $6.4 billion (some people say as much as $14 billion) to balance last year’s budget. Five months after he took the stimulus money, Perry again took advantage of federal funding to issue $2 billion in bonds for highway improvements in Texas. Despite last year’s balanced budget, he’s managed to get the state’s budget a $27 billion shortfall this year.

Perry claims a stellar record on job creation. He lies. Twenty-three percent of the other states have lower unemployment rates thanTexas. The job growth seen under Perry is the same as it was under former Democratic Governor Ann Richards. And the jobs he claims to have created pay a pitiful wage. Compared to all the other states,Texas has by far the largest number of employees (about 550,000 Texans or 9.5 percent of hourly workers) paid at or below the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour in 2010). The figure of 550,000 in 2010 rose from 221,000 in 2007, an almost 150-percent increase. The median hourly earnings for all Texas workers was $11.20 per hour in 2010, compared to the national median of $12.50 per hour.

Perry uses the Old Testament to explain the problems he’s caused in Texas during the past decade. “I think in America from time to time we have to go through some difficult times—and I think we’re going through those difficult economic times for a purpose, to bring us back to those Biblical principles of you know, you don’t spend all the money. You work hard for those six years and you put up that seventh year in the warehouse to take you through the hard times. And not spending all of our money. Not asking for Pharaoh to give everything to everybody and to take care of folks because at the end of the day, it’s slavery. We become slaves to government.” So God did it.

So who should be afraid of having Perry for President?

Children:Texas is 33rd in average public school teacher salary, 43rd in high school graduation rate, 44th in average state funding per pupil, 45th in SAT scores, and dead last in the percent of people over the age of 25 with at least a high school diploma. Texas ranks fourth in the United States in the percentage of children living in poverty, 34th in the percent of children who have received full immunizations, and first in the percent of children without health insurance. [These and other rankings below come from a Texas Legislative Study Group.] This year Perry scaled back more than $10 billion of child support services despite Texas’ $8.2 billion rainy day fund. Even Barbara Bush, George W.’s daughter, is upset with the direction ofTexas. In an op-ed piece, she says, “An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma. We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.” She thinks something should be done about Rick Perry—and she doesn’t mean electing him for president. In schools cheerleaders are “mouthpieces,” which means that they are forced to cheer for boys who rape them—and then pay court costs if they have the temerity to sue.

Women: The latest Texas anti-abortion law requires pregnant women to view a sonogram of the fetus and listen to a detailed explanation of limbs and organs that are developing before having an abortion. The ACLU is suing to overturn this law.

Non-Christians: Lots of Perry’s public praying for rain, election, etc. is combined with a proposed bill preventing Sharia law—despite the fact that no one suggests that it exists in Texas. Perry’s Day of Fasting and Prayer in August will be held in conjunction with American Family Association whose representative, Bryan Fischer, claims that Muslims have no First Amendment rights. Fischer also thinks that American Muslims should be deported and that Muslims should be prohibited from serving in the armed forces. The spokesperson for Day, Eric Bearse, has told the AFA that the purpose of the summit is, in part, to convert non-Christians.

Voters: A state bill wants to avoid any decision from the Department of Justice about redistricting. Another one, swiftly passed, requires photo ID for voting. The state is also arbitrary about its definition of photo ID: concealed weapon permits are sufficient, student IDs aren’t. Perry wants to repeal the 17th Amendment, which allows people to electU.S.senators.

Workers: Texas ranks last in workers compensation coverage.

People Who Desire Health and Well-Being: Texas ranks first in the number of areas of hazardous and toxic waste emissions and leads the nation in carbon dioxide emissions. Perry, a global warming denier, called the 2010 BP oil spill an “act of God.” (Always God’s fault!) Perry also wants to repeal the 16th Amendment that permits the federal government to fund highway construction projects, food inspectors, the military, etc.

People in Need: Texas is at the top of the states in the percentage of people without health insurance yet comes in second to last in percentage of low-income population covered by Medicaid. Not even happy with that low percentage, Perry wants to strip those 3.6 million low-income Texans of their health care, causing the state to lose billions of federal dollars that support hospitals and other providers, forcing these to eat the costs of caring for uninsured individuals who use the emergency room as their primary source of care. Texas ranks ninth in income inequality between the rich and poor and fifth in income inequality between the rich and middle class.

LGBTQ People: Texas refuses to recognize sex changes in transgender people—born that way, stay that way. Perry opposes having LGBT centers on college campuses and wants to bring back laws against sodomy (probably just for same-sex couples, however). After Texas’s anti-sodomy law was struck down in 2003 by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, Perry supported the Texas legislature’s refusal to remove the law from its books. At his Day of Fasting and Prayer on August 6, Perry will be accompanied by American Family Association “Director of Issue Analysis” Bryan Fischer, who claims that the German Nazi Party was formed by homosexual thugs. Fischer also wants homosexuals banned from public office. The AFA is classified a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Plaintiffs against Corporations: Plaintiffs who lose cases against corporations will have to pay both sides’ court costs. Those who win but get less than the defendant originally offered also pay for the court costs. Corporations win again.

Innocent convicts: Over 200 men have been executed in Texas since he became governor, including at least one who was almost certainly innocent.

Who should like Rick Perry?

Rich old men especially those with yachts because of the bill that lifted taxes of yachts that cost $250,000 or more. And corporations. They’re people too.

An independent poll shows that 9 percent of likely Texas Republican—just Republican!—voters would support Gov. Rick Perry in a presidential race—and that percentage has more than doubled from the 4 percent he got in a poll while Donald Trump was still telling people that he considered running. In his last election to governor, Perry received only 39 percent of votes.

According to the Legislative Reference Library, Perry was sent 1,379 bills before May 30 that needed his signature. With the deadline two days ago, he had signed or vetoed only 277 of those bills. If he doesn’t sign a bill, it automatically becomes law. Maybe he just didn’t want to do all that writing. Autopen anyone?

“Our opponents on the left are never going to like us, so let’s quit trying to curry favor with them,” declared Perry. Okay, that’s a truth if the far right continues its craziness. But then he calls the Obama administration’s “mix of arrogance and audacity” (does he have a mirror?) and complains about its big-government overreach. Looking at the results of his “small government” above, one wonders about his definition of “small government.”